Telling a Better Story with Obi Kaufmann, Author, Artist and Ecological Philosopher

And we talk about his new book called 'The State of Fire: Why California Burns'

Oct 01, 2024

Hello folks, welcome to the latest episode of the Ecosystem Member podcast, which might also be my new favorite episode.

Our guest is Obi Kaufmann, a writer, a poet, an artist, a backpacker, ecological philosopher and student of all things California ecology. Many of you listening are probably familiar with Obi through his incredible Field Atlas series of California, combining his beautiful watercolors of the more than human world of California alongside equally beautiful data-driven words. In addition to the Field Atlases, Obi has written two thinner works - ‘The State of Water’ and the newly released ‘The State of Fire’, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t yet.

In this conversation we explore what is natural and what is nature, the influence of E.O. Wilson’s book ‘Consilience’ on Obi’s work in bridging different disciplines and of course, his Field Atlas series and new book ‘The State of Fire'.

Many guests I’ve had on are guests that I have learned something from and I want to share that with you the listener. And we learn a lot from Obi in this episode for sure. What I think is unique about this episode and selfishly why I asked Obi to be a guest is that we explored new ground, in the moment.

My take away from that exploration is a new understanding of how we think about nature. We’ve discussed before how we are as much a part of nature as white crowned sparrows and Point Reyes National Seashore. However, we still often get hung up on identities like environmentalist and we misuse words like preservation and conservation because we still haven’t fully adopted this idea that we are nature. We donate and volunteer to protect these beautiful places and beautiful species for us, but when we truly bring on board an idea of conservation that includes us rather than being for us, we can shift our orientation because as Obi puts it - there is no daylight between the health of your ecosystem and your own health. It’s not just physical or aesthetic, it is spiritual, it is mental. And I think once we figure this out, we can truly inhabit our membership in the ecosystems.

Listen/Watch

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